Conventional tire chains are heavy, difficult to mount upon the tire, and are difficult to tighten upon the tire so that they often remain loose and subject to banging against the fender of the vehicle in a most unsatisfactory and disturbing manner, subjecting the chain to breakage, subjecting the vehicle to damage, and often limiting the maximum speed of the vehicle while the chains are mounted.
Because of all of these disadvantages, various proposals have been made in the past for vehicle tire chain structures employing non-metallic connectors between the cross chains. A number of such structures have been devised by the present inventor, as shown in his prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,856,069, 3,858,634, 3,970,132, and 4,185,674 issued Jan. 29, 1980. The present invention represents an improvement over those prior structures.
One of the major problems in all tire chain structures, including structures employing non-metallic cross chain connectors, is to provide for ease of adjustment in the size of the tire chain structure to exactly fit a particular tire, without requiring an infinite number of different sizes to fit all of the different tire sizes. Another closely related problem is that of tightening the tire chain structure after it is assembled upon the tire.
Accordingly, it is a major object of the present invention to provide improved and simplified means for adjusting the size and tightness of vehicle tire chain structures having non-metallic connectors for the cross chains.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved vehicle tire chain structure employing non-metallic interconnectors for the cross chains in which the connections to the cross chains are very easily made, and wherein the points of attachment of the non-metallic connectors to the cross chains are maintained in a substantially fixed position during mounting and use of the structure.
Another object of the invention is to provide an improved tire chain structure in which the cross chains are more easily reversed or replaced when worn or broken.
The last issued of the above listed patents, U.S. Pat. No. 4,185,674 is directed to a tire chain invention for which the objectives are very similar to those listed above, and the structure of that invention substantially fulfills those objectives. However, it is a further objective of the present invention to provide for fulfillment of all of the above mentioned objectives with a greatly simplified structure which provides for greater ease of assembly and lower cost, while at the same time providing superior results.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description and the accompanying drawings.